The Other Ray


The Other Ray

Originally shared by The Cloberth

"That's why I never became a director. I never had patience with people.”

Monster Man
Born in Los Angeles, California on this date in 1920, American special effects artist and film producer Ray Harryhausen. 
Long before Computer Generated Imagery provided the ‘realism’ in the fantasy and science fiction movies of today, animators labored long hours to create mythical creatures. Harryhausen was the undisputed master of stop-motion animation. As a young man, he was influenced by many of the early pioneering films, in particular King Kong, and produced a few ambitious projects independently. In the early 1940s, he worked on some of George Pal's Puppetoons. His big break came in 1949 with the opportunity to animate Mighty Joe Young, alongside Willis O’Brien, the animator of King Kong. 
In 1952, with his work on Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, he introduced his animation technique know as Dynamation, in which two separate footages of live action, background and foreground, would ‘sandwich that other of the animated models, giving a greater sense of realism. His next step forward was in 1958, working on his first color film, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which was that year’s most successful Summer movie.
Between 1952 (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms) and 1981 (Clash of the Titans), Harryhausen animated and/or produced 15 films. In 1992, Harryhausen received the Academy’s Gordon E. Sawyer Award for "technological contributions [which] have brought credit to the industry".
Harryhausen has a connection with another film icon born on this date – Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann scored four films in which Harryhausen’s creations appear - The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Three Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts.
http://www.rayharryhausen.com/index.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9kmjW73-v4

Comments

  1. G.K. NelsonJune 29, 2015 at 6:31 AM

    I'm showing my age here, but I'd rather watch a Harryhausen effort than a lot of the slick CG stuff I see today.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Drew McCarthyJune 29, 2015 at 6:34 AM

    Me, too.

    ReplyDelete

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